Throughout the Festival we showcase an array of new, International short films.

Here's the A-Z of shorts screened at the Green Film Fest 2017.

The Accord

RC Cone, USA, 2016, 18 min

The reality of growing up a surfer in Iceland is different from anywhere else in the world. It's a harsh place. There are no surf shops, guidebooks or webcams. But being so far removed from the hustle and bustle of the known surf world hardens Iceland's surfers to confront the issue they all must face: the North Atlantic wind. Follow Heiðar Logi Elíasson on his journey through Iceland searching for that rare, yet significant, compromise that brings both Icelandic surfers and the North Atlantic wind to the table.

Ancient Movie

2014, Russia, 1 min

A primitive hunter pursues his prey across increasingly challenging terrain, but not all is as it seems… Pavel Pogudin animated this petroglyphic intro for the Russian Anthropological Film Festival in Yekaterinburg.

Arrested (Again)

Dan Goldes, USA, 2016, 5 min

Bay Area activist Karen Topakian has been arrested dozens of times for using nonviolent civil disobedience to protest nuclear proliferation, human rights abuses, environmental issues, and war. (Most recently, this January on a crane near the White House as part of a Greenpeace action to hang a 'RESIST' banner.) What drives her to repeatedly put her body on the line? In turn lighthearted and moving, Karen's story speaks to the need for Americans, now more than ever, to exercise this important First Amendment right.

Being Hear

Palmer Morse, Matthew Mikkelsen, USA, 2016, 10 min

Gordon Hempton is an Emmy Award winning nature sound recordist and acoustic ecologist from Joyce, Washington. For a vast majority of his life he has traveled all over the world in search of sound. In recent years, an ever increasing intrusion of noise pollution from human activity has interfered with his work. BEING HEAR highlights his quest to preserve silence, and the importance of listening. The film takes place on the Olympic Peninsula, the largest coniferous forest and only rain forest in the continental United States. It also features his world renowned and award-winning sound recordings.

Best of Luck With The Wall

Josh Begley, 2016, USA, 7 min

A voyage across the US-Mexico border, stitched together from 200,000 satellite images, in this short film collaboration from Field of Vision and The Intercept.

Blind Sushi

Cinema Dehor

Olga Tatiana Polietkova, Russia, 2015, 3 min

Living in the modern world, we are so busy with our daily routines and technology addictions that sometimes we forget the real beauty of the world is right in front of our eyes. An experimental combination of traditional animation and timelapse photography.

The Circle of Life

Krill Kravchenko, Russia, 2015, 9 min

Everything in life depends on one another - small to large and large to small.

The Confluence

Courtney Blackmer-Raynolds, Navajo Nation, 2016, 16 min

This short documentary focuses on the controversial Escalade Development, a proposal which would take a gondola to the bottom of the Grand Canyon where the Colorado and Little Colorado Rivers meet. The confluence is sacred to the Navajo people because their creation story teaches that this is where people first emerged into our world. As the film follows a group of Navajo activists fighting to protect this sacred site, we explore how places like the Grand Canyon shape human identities in profound ways.

Cormorants in the Crosshairs

Judy Irving, USA, 2016, 10 min

The species under-fire at East Sand Island, Double-crested Cormorants, are often misunderstood. Judy Irving's short doc pays homage to these amazing birds, highlighting their beauty and athleticism, while drawing sharp attention to the travesty waged upon them in the name of salmon recovery.

The Diver (El Buzo)

Esteban Arrangoiz, Mexico, 2015, 15 min

Julio César Cu Cámara is one of the world's few sewer divers. Working in conduits overflowing with trash, he keeps Mexico City’s sewage system functioning.

- Best Short Documentary, Morelia International Film Festival- Aciertos Award-Best Short Film, UNAM International Film Festival.

Docktown

Olivia A. Booker and Leonor Zuniga Gutierrez, USA, 2016, 9 min

A houseboat community fights for survival and stability amidst the changing landscape of housing developments in Silicon Valley.

Dreaming With Lola

Jila Nikpay, 2016, USA, 8 min

Duck farmer Khaiti Hallstein follows her dream of owning a small farm after her mother’s death. She is driven by a desire to have a voice in food production and find her true calling.

Eyes on the Water

Jason Hanasik & Graelyn Brashear, USA, 2017, 10 min

What happens when a food source critical to a way of life becomes too risky to eat? As oceans get warmer and more acidic due to climate change, toxic algae blooms that poison shellfish are becoming a bigger and bigger problem. It's a global issue, but it hits Southeast Alaska hard. Eyes on the Water is story of native Alaskan tribes who are pushing back against the growing threat of shellfish poisoning with a self-run testing network—saving lives while protecting a link to an ancient culture, and shedding light on an environmental problem that is maddeningly hard to fight. At the heart of it is the way we understand and navigate the effects of climate change on our lives, our diet, and our health.

The Fantastic Three

This class at a San Francisco elementary school are going green. Winner of Green Film Fest's 2017 Climate Action Film Contest - K-8 category.

Fractured

Maritte Go, USA, 2015, 5 min

In this short drama mystery, a farmer struggles to come to terms with his dying farm and his pregnant wife’s mysterious illness, both of which may be the result of a natural energy company that has been drilling nearby.

Home Flavored

Jamie DeWolf, USA, 2014, 5 min

In this powerful and poignant portrait of a Latino American family, award winning Youth Speaks poet Monica Mendoza tells the haunting story of how corporations continue to colonize the bodies of her culture and how to we can return to our roots.

- Grand Prize Winner, Real Food Films 2016

Irregulars

Fabio Palmieri, Italy, 2015, USA, 9 min

Against an hypnotic factory backdrop, a refugee encapsulates the global immigration crisis in his own wrenching words. Each year 400,000 people from Africa, Asia and Middle East, try to enter Europe. They flee from war, persecution and poverty. Since the ways by land have been interrupted, they board overloaded vessels and face a dangerous and often deadly voyage across the Mediterranean.

Last Season

Slawomir Witek, Poland, 2016, 12 min

Spend a night at sea with two fishermen - father and son - working on cutters off the Polish coast of the Baltic Sea. From dusk till dawn and catch to catch, it's a thankless job filled with endless tedium. Despite the unfavorable weather, slanting rain and often modest catch, young people follow in the footsteps of their ancestors in order to arrive at the port in the pale dawn with a few cod on the deck.

Lost in Light

Sriram Murali, USA, 2016, 3 min

With stunning time-lapse photography, this short film shows how light pollution affects the view of California's night skies.

Lucens

Marcel Barelli, Switzerland, 2015, 6 min

The story of the first 100%, made-in-Switzerland nuclear power plant…and also the last.

Mining The Mother Mode

H. Paul Moon, USA, 2016, 9 min

Combining cinematic western landscapes with intimate poetry recitation, Mining the Mother Lode is an agrarian dirge on wasted resources, our culture of consumption, and brokers who trade on our most precious resource: water.

Mom-Heron

Marina Karpova, Russia, 2016, 11 min

A heron has her own life on her lake. She doesn’t think about being a mother. But life has other plans...

Mother's Cry

Lisa Russell, USA, 2015, 3 mins

A poetic call to combat climate change by Savon Bartley, internationally renowned youth spoken word poet hailing from North Chicago, IL currently residing in New Jersey. Savon writes poetry as a way to open conversations about identity, global health, social injustice and mental health issues.

Winner of Green Film Fest's 2017 Climate Action Film Contest - General Public category.

My Strange Grandpa

Dina Velikovskaya, Russia, 2011, 9 min

The story of a little girl and her nutty grandfather — an absent-minded inventor who ventures up and down a windy beach in Russia collecting other people’s trash. The tiny granddaughter is embarrassed by his quirky habits, that is until one stormy night when he builds her something marvelous from the junk.

Navajo Song

Roman Sokalov, Russia, 2012, 7 min

Based on an ancient song of Navaho Indians expressing an eternal link between all the living creatures on the Earth. This is a story about a man who possesse the skill to let everything go easily. He shares his special view of the world with the ones who surround him, giving them the chance to realize and change something.

No Go Zone

Atelier Collectif, Belgium, 2016, 10 min

Through stop motion animation, No Go Zone chronicles the daily life of the last man to remain in the red zone after the evacuation of the Fukushima area due the nuclear power plant accident of 2011. A sad, forced solitude lightened by the company of an occasional animal and the content of a bottle saved for a special moment.

Octopus

Our Ocean Is Blue

A song about the deterioration of marine life and the pollution of our ocean. Winner of Green Film Fest's 2017 Climate Action Film Contest - High School category.

Pangolin

Katie Schuler, Nick Rogacki, USA, 2016, 13 min

2017 Best Short Award: An intimate glimpse into the journey of a single pangolin; from the moment it is taken from the wild to its final destination in China. Filmed on location across three countries with the help of reformed poachers, wildlife enforcement officers, and the IUCN Pangolin Group, the film acts as a surrogate for an estimated hundred thousand pangolins that are poached and smuggled annually throughout Southeast Asia and Africa. Pangolin seeks to inform a broad audience about pangolins and the illegal trade they are central to, in order to address the very real danger that pangolins might be extinct before much of the world ever knew they existed. Filmed with minimal commentary to be as immersive as possible, Pangolin offers audiences the opportunity experience the life, death and afterlife of the most illegally trafficked mammal on the planet.

Perennial Grains: Taming the Carbon Monster

The Perennial, USA, 2016, 1 min

How plants with deep perennial roots can pull CO2 from the atmosphere and fight climate change, in this short animation from San Francisco's The Perennial restaurant.

Pik Pik Pik

Dmitry Vysotskiy, Russia, 2014, 4 min

The ants and the birds live on a tree in the forest. They fight with each other every day. But then one day, a lumberjack arrives…

The Plastic Bottle Controversy - Explained

Jeffrey Chen, USA, 2017, 5 min

2017 Young Filmmaker Award: The first in a series of short films, filmmaker Jeffery Chen explains the environmental impact of plastic with equal amounts of wit and facts.

- Best High School Film and Best in Show at Breathe California's 2017 Clear the Air Film Fest.

Property

Allison Otto, USA, 2016, 4 min

This poignant, award-winning documentary short reveals a day in the life at the National Wildlife Property Repository—a little-known 22,000 square-foot warehouse outside of Denver where wildlife items confiscated at US ports of entry are stored. The Repository currently houses more than one million items. The film is told through the eyes of Doni Sprague, an employee who has worked there for 20 years cataloguing, tagging, bagging and shelving illegal wildlife items on a daily basis.

Unbroken Ground

Chris Malloy, USA, 2016, 26 min

Our food choices are deeply connected to climate change.Unbroken Ground explains the critical role food will play in the next frontier of our efforts to solve the environmental crisis. It explores four areas of agriculture that aim to change our relationship to the land and oceans. Most of our food is produced using methods that reduce biodiversity, decimate soil and contribute to climate change. Our food can and should be a part of the solution to the environmental crisis – grown, harvested and produced in ways that restore our land, water and wildlife. The film tells the story of four groups that are pioneers in the fields of regenerative agriculture, regenerative grazing, diversified crop development and restorative fishing.

Under The Canopy

Conservation International, USA, 2017, 11 min

The world's greatest rainforest is also one of its most vital life-support systems - and it is under threat. Conservation International (CI) and Jaunt VR take viewers "Under the Canopy" to experience the wonders of the Amazon rainforest and appreciate why we need to protect it. In this virtual reality (VR) film, you will soar over treetops and plunge into rivers as you explore Earth's most biodiverse ecosystem.

Velo Visionaries - Alicia Tapia

Kristin Tieche, USA, 2016, 8 min

Meet Alicia Tapia, creator of Bibliobicicleta, a free library on wheels that can be found weekly in The Panhandle in San Francisco. Alicia is also the librarian and digital literacy instructor at De Marillac Academy in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco, and a Zen practitioner. Traveling by bicycle provides a unique perspective on your surroundings, often inspiring moments of insight and creating a profound connection to your community. Velo Visionaries presents a series of interviews with great thinkers of today's global bicycle culture from the point of view of the person behind the handlebars.

What's On Your Plate

Ronan Furata, Robert Shi, Jeffrey Chen, USA, 2017, 2 min

Green Film Fest teamed up with The Mix at SFPL to create a free youth workshop for budding environmental filmmakers. Teens learned how to write, shoot, and edit a short film in just a few hours. Come and see the results!